The area known as Natchez Under-The-Hill has endured
a checkered past. Once a busy port where everything from luxurious
steamboats, to lowly flatboats docked, Under-The-Hill and it's once
infamous Silver Street is today a popular tourist attraction.

During the late 1700's, and into the 1900's, Under-The-Hill
was comprised of a wide flat area that extended several hundred yards
from the Mississippi River to beneath a high bluff on which Fort Rosalie
once stood, and on which the city of Natchez was later built. The
first steamboat to arrive at Under-The-Hill was the New Orleans. Piloted
by Nicholas Roosevelt, the fragile little steamer made the trip down the
river in 1811, the same year of the earthquake that struck along the New
Madrid fault, and altered the course of the mighty Mississippi.

The New Orleans was only one of thousands
of steamboats, paddle wheelers, barges, flatboats, and so-called quarter
boats that Under-The-Hill was to welcome to it's shore. There
were mail packets, luxurious passenger boats, coal barges from Cincinnati,
gunboats, and steamboats so over-laden with cotton bales, it was hard to
imagine they were sea-worthy. Many were not, and terrible accidents
occurred regularly up and down the river. Steamboat captains became legendary
figures, and it is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction.

This sketch of Natchez-Under-The-Hill
was drawn in 1866by A. R. Waud, for Harpers
Weekly.

As trade opened on the Mississippi River, Natchez
Under-The-Hill began to grow. Houses, businesses, and warehouses
appeared. The Bluff City Railway built parallel tracks leading from the
landing up the bluff, to Natchez, for ease in transporting goods.
Enterprising individuals, equipped with only a cart and mule, hauled freight
from the landing to any part of the city for about 50 cents. By 1885
a mule-drawn trolley ferried passengers up and down Silver Street, to the
top of the bluff. A ferry was established that linked Under-The-Hill
with the small town of Vidalia, Concordia Parish, LA, across the river.
For many years, the McNeely family operated the only ferry that made the
crossing..

Other businesses located on the landing were St.
Jacobs Oil, Boar Dining and Lodging, C. P. Pollard, D. Moses and
Sons "Cheap Cash Store," O'Neil and Company coal yard, and Rumble and Wensel
"Groceries and Provisions, Liquor sac," one of the most popular and durable
businesses located Under-The-Hill. For many years, Under-The-Hill
was the busiest port between Ohio and New Orleans.

The reputation of Under-The-Hill was, in part,
less than desirable. Arriving with the cotton, mail, coal, and molasses
were drunks, bandits, murderers, and other rabble-rousers who, each evening,
frequented the brothels, bars, and taverns that dotted Silver Street.
Fist and knife fights were considered the norm, and muggings, shootings,
and murders were a regular occurrence. One or more murders per evening
were not unusual.

Other persons who streamed into Under-The-Hill
were victims of steamboat accidents. The
river offered it's share of natural dangers: snags, floating debries,
storms, current, sudden high water. But many accidents were man-made,
and could have been avoided. In an attempt to increase profits, steamboat
companies piled as much freight on board as possible. Drunken
and enept skippers and pilots fell asleep at the helm, or made poor decisions.
Many boats were unsafe, and in need of repair. Boiler explosions
and fires accounted for much loss of life.

Inevitably, port traffic at Under-The-Hill began
to subside. When the packet companies began to realize that passenger
travel accounted for less revenue than freight, scheduled passenger excursions
began to decline. Eventually, the railroad became the primary
means of transportation. Travel by rail was much faster than the
slow cumbersome paddle-wheelers, and much safer. Also, fright did
not have to be transported to and from the Mississippi River. It
could travel overland, cutting off up to hundreds of miles on a journey.

The final decline of Under-The-Hill occurred after
1930, when the US Army Corps of Engineers cut of an upstream loop causing
the river current to move faster and stronger than ever. The endless
battering on the soft loess soil created a steady erosion of the landing,
and the bluff behind it.

This now-restored building
was one of the earlybrick structures located
Under-The-Hill.

All that remains today, of Under-The-Hill, is
the lone Silver Street and one row of restored brick and wood buildings.
Little remains as evidence of it's century of importance as a port, or
of it's wild and bloody nights. Today, housed in the old buildings,
are several restaurants and gift shops, as well as the office for the Lady
Luck, a new paddle wheeler gambling boat permanently mooredUnder-The-Hill.
Two to three times a week one of the larger steamboats arrives from St.
Louis or New Orleans, and docks overnight to allow it's passengers an opportunity
to enjoy a day in Natchez.

Even today, however, the mighty Mississippi reins
havoc on the soft loess of the bluffs and Under-The-Hill. Melting
snow from the Dakota's, in the spring of 1997, made it's way down the river.
The river rose to flood stage, and despite rows of sandbags, private vehicle
transportation was halted, and for awhile, the Lady Luck was closed.